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Trends in Rent, Monuments and Education

via McBrooklynA metaphor for politics: We are all stuck together on the same path.

If elections were decided based on what words are hot right now on Twitter, then Jimmy McMillan would be a front-runner. On Wednesday, the phrase “Damn High” was still trending on the service, a development mostly connected to postings referencing the name of Mr. McMillan’s bombastic, rent-focused political party and only partly buttressed by the inclusion of some unrelated messages about marijuana, medical and otherwise.

Twitter users remain giddy with the notion of a political party with such a profane name and seem to take delight in repeating it.

“I am officially registered to vote,” one Staten Islander posted. “The party I chose in NYS is the ‘Rent is TOO damn high’ party. How can I not support them?”

The Washington echo chamber has been getting in on the act, as well. Meghan McCain writes that “I love politics — and Jimmy is right, the rent is too damn high.”

The blogger Matt Yglesias, meanwhile, posted a more serious-minded take on the policy behind the party’s position. “The reason the rent is so damn high is undue restrictions on high-density construction.”

Here for a little longer: that claustrophobic feeling on the Brooklyn Bridge. McBrooklynposts a photo of one particularly narrow stretch of the pedestrian and bike path looking more like a dystopian video game level than a scenic promenade. This could either alleviate tensions between cyclists and strollers on the bridge — by reducing the number of lollygagging tourists — or cause those clashes to become much, much more pitched.

In other monument news, Beehive Hairdresser wonders why the owners of the Empire State Building need to advertise the building on the New Jersey Turnpike. Doesn’t the skyline serve as enough of a promotion?

Meanwhile, Nathan Thornburgh at Dad Wagonrants about the city’s gifted and talented program for young students, which he finds to be “an almost complete sham.”

After attending an information session about the program, he reports that the education offered is not much different from that of the regular public schools; only the students are.

The Gifted and Talented program seems to be defined only by its barriers to entry: you must score in the 90th percentile or higher to get into a districtwide program, and 97th percentile or higher to get into a citywide program.

In other words, the program is kind of meaningless. But he still wants to get his daughter in.

In my opinion, another reason why the rents in NYC are too darned high is because developers (like those behind the Atlantic Yards fiasco) seduce the public with promises to build 6,400 apartments – then suddenly turn around and back away from such promises, claiming that there’s no demand for more apartments in New York City!

As a child, I spent 2 years at a gifted program in a lower socioeconomic area, and the rest at non-gifted suburban schools in much wealthier areas. Those 2 years were by far the most educationally rewarding. The resources and specifics of the educational program were secondary; by far, the most important thing was being surrounded by children with similar interests and abilities as me. I hesitate to use the word “unshackled, but it’s probably the best metaphor for the transition from open to gifted schooling, at least for me.

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